Enemy at the gate

One night, I woke up, hot and sweaty, with my heart thumping, and feeling so dizzy that I had to hang onto the edge of the bed. The moonlight was streaming through the window and I could hear Johnny's snorting breaths and feel his toes in my stomach.

Was this how it felt when you were coming down with infantile paralysis? I tried to remember that list of symptoms. Weren't dizziness and fever part of it? Was this how it was going to be? Not Johnny, who was never very strong.

Not Jessie, who was the youngest. The invisible enemy was going to creep in and attack me. I was so scared I couldn’t get back to sleep for ages.

I lay there in the moonlit dark, wiggling my hands and feet and ankles, to make sure that everything still worked properly. Was this it? I would be taken off to   hospital.   I  would  never  run

again, let alone run as fast as Jack Lovelock. I would never get to the Olympics.

I might never even walk again.

Yes, I would. I would make myself get better. Everyone would be talking about me, the boy hero who refused to give up and made a miraculous re­covery. I'd be in all the papers. Doctors would come from all around the world to find out how I'd beaten the dread disease.

Or perhaps I wouldn't. I would lie there in hospital for weeks, months, years. All my family would come and visit. Flo and Lily would stand by my bed, sobbing, while the nurses told them how brave I was.

The next thing I knew, it was morning and sunlight was streaming in instead. I tested my fingers and toes again. Every­thing still worked.

It was all right. I was still safe. We were still all safe.

The initial idea for Enemy at the gate came from my husband's father, Peter Werry. As a child, he lived with his family in Ashburton, where his father was a teacher. When polio broke out, his parents decided that the safest place for Peter and his brother John would be staying with relatives who had a sheep station at Waikononi, two hours drive away in the Peel Forest.

Even today, the Peel Forest is quite an isolated place. Seventy years ago it must have been even more so. The boys and their mother stayed on the farm, while their father went back to work, but    they   didn't    stay   in    the

farmhouse. They spent three months camping in a tent in a field, not seeing anybody except their relatives and one other family who came with them.

I think the boys quite enjoyed the experience, although it must have been very cold. I don't suppose their mother enjoyed having to sleep in a tent and cook over a primus for three months, but she must have thought it was worth it. In those days, no one knew what caused polio, or how to avoid catching it. There was no cure and parents were terrified that their children would end up sick, paralysed or at worst dead.

• Ask older friends or relatives what they know about polio. If you ask anyone older than about 60, they might remember the polio epidemics. Do people still catch polio anywhere in the world today? Send me an email and tell me what you've found out.

• At the back of the book, you'll find some information about real-life characters in the story. They include royalty, two aviators, a child film star, a Canadian fam­ily, a nurse, and even a dog. Which ones are you most inter­ested in? See if you can find out more about them.

<< back to books

"Tom's family shares the concern and fear about the disease" ... read more

"It seems to plonk you fair and square in 1930's New Zealand and one gets a real sense of what life was like back then for ordinary New Zealanders." ... read more

I liked Philippa Werry's last book, The Great Chocolate Cake Bake-Off, which I reviewed here almost exactly a year ago, on 6 March 2007 and this one is even better ... read more

Enemy at the Gate is a novel which commences in the year of 1936 just as the first cases of poliomyelitis were being confirmed. ... read more

Scholastic Teaching Notes
click to download

Reader's Activity Links

1. Find out more about polio. What is polio? (or infantile paralysis as it used to be called.) Why were people so scared of catching it? What happened in a polio epidemic? Does polio still exist?
Kingston historical website

Look at this photo from the Christchurch City Libraries collection. Why do these children look so happy? What do you think their life has been like for the last five months?
The weekly press, 7 May 1925

2. Find out more about Jack Lovelock. Who was he? Why was he so famous?
New Zealand history online

3. Find out more about school milk. Why was it introduced? When did it stop?
Christchurch City Libraries